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Publisher's Summary

Fred Scully waits at the arrival gate of an international airport, anxious to see his wife and seven-year-old daughter. After two years in Europe they are finally settling down. He sees a new life before them, a stable outlook, a cottage in the Irish countryside that he's renovated by hand. He's waited, sweated on this reunion. He does not like to be alone - he's that kind of man. The flight lands, the glass doors hiss open, and Scully's life begins to go down in flames.

I will always give a Tim Winton novel a go and this one started off well. His usual colourful characters and upbeat descriptions. The storyline gets frustrating and the end is even more so but this could be overlooked. The thing that can't be overlooked is the narration,which impedes greatly on any enjoyment of the book. He gives the Australian characters South African accents and his own delivery is monotonous and tedious. All the way through, I kept thinking of how much better Humphrey Bower would have done it.